ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 9, 1997 TAG: 9703100064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-16 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The company was polluting the Pagan River and taught workers to conceal that fact, the ex-employee says.
A fired Smithfield Foods Inc. worker says he was told to falsify environmental reports on hog waste discharged into the Pagan River, a newspaper has reported.
Shannon Williams, 31, of Hampton told The Virginian-Pilot in an article published Friday that he was taught on his second day on the job in November 1994 how to doctor records to hide pollution. He said he complied but also kept his own records showing measurements for chlorine and other potential pollutants.
Williams said he plans to turn over the yellowed and dirtied records, bound together by electrical tape, to the Department of Environmental Quality. The agency wants to compare his records with Smithfield Foods' official reports, he said.
Williams said a state criminal investigator interviewed him two weeks ago. He also said DEQ is reviewing whether Smithfield's reports were falsified after 1994, when a manager of company sewage plants was forced to resign for doing the same thing.
The agency refused to confirm or deny whether it is investigating Smithfield Foods, citing internal policy, DEQ deputy directory March Bell said Friday.
Carl Wood, vice president in charge of engineering at Smithfield, called Williams a ``troublemaker'' whose allegations were investigated internally but never panned out.
``We looked into all these things,'' Wood said. ``We got everyone together, and we could never find anything more than what he was saying.''
Smithfield Foods, the largest pork processor on the East Coast, already faces two lawsuits for allegedly polluting the Pagan River with contaminated waste.
The Justice Department is seeking as much as $125 million in fines for some 5,000 alleged pollution violations since 1991. State Attorney General Jim Gilmore filed another suit seeking unspecified fines for alleged violations since 1994.
Williams' claims support those made by former plant manager Terry Lynn Rettig, who is serving 30 months in prison after pleading guilty last fall to violating the Clean Water Act. Rettig ran the plants from 1983 to 1994.
In an affidavit, Rettig said his bosses encouraged him to falsify state reports to hide pollution. Smithfield Foods said Rettig acted on his own.
Williams said he decided to come forward because Rettig was unfairly portrayed as a lone polluter.
``The stuff Terry was doing, we were doing too,'' Williams said.
Williams was a waste-water operator at Smithfield's two Isle of Wight County plants for four months, through February 1995 when he was transferred to another department.
Williams claims his transfer occurred after he told senior managers about employee misconduct, including falsifying reports and drinking on the job.
Wood said the company tried three times to find a place for Williams, but at each job he ``caused dissension'' and didn't perform as requested. He was fired in July 1996.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB